A Good Way to See
by HecateA
Summary: After his time in Malfoy Manor, Dean can't stand being within four walls. It takes Luna to notice that if they put a pen and paper in his hand, the whole world belongs to Dean. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **I would die for Dean Thomas, please enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **PTSD; claustrophobia

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**Stacked with: **MC4A; Remains of War; Flouting Regulations; Sky's the Limit; Shipping War; Summer Bingo

**Individual Challenge(s): **Hola, Bonjour, Jambo; Gryffindor MC; Ravenclaw MC; Beauxbatons MC; Seeds; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Themes and Things A (Friendship); Themes and Things B (Escape); Themes and Things C (Drawing/painting); Ethnic and Present; Neurodivergent; Rian-Russo Inversion (Y); Flags and Ribbons (Y); Letter of the Day; Short Jog; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

**Representation(s): **Asexual Luna; Boom Boys; Dean/Luna friendship

**Bonus challenge(s): **Second Verse (Not a Lamp); Chorus (Machismo)

**Tertiary bonus challenge: **Satisfaction

**Word Count: 1317**

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_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Dean Thomas/Seamus Finnegan (Boom Boys)

**List (Prompt): **Summer Big List (Ocean/sea)

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_**Summer Bingo**_

**Space Address (Prompt): **4A (Hail)

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**A Good Way to See **

_I draw like other people bite their nails._

-Pablo Picasso

Fleur had taught them a new French expression to describe the wind today: "_un vent à décorner les boeufs." _It meant "a wind that could blow the horns off the bulls." They'd laughed about it all morning, as they'd helped her hurriedly bring laundry back inside the house. But then the hail had come, and all the windows had been shut, and the doors had been locked, and they were inside again.

It hadn't taken long for Fleur to notice how antsy Dean was getting. He wasn't sure if she'd noticed the sweat beading on his forehead or his panting first.

"Dean?" She asked. He liked the way she said his name; the 'ea' nearly sounded like the word 'sea,' which was the big greyish blue entity Dean had gotten used to walking along over the last week at Shell Cottage.

"I'm okay," he said.

"You do not look like it," Fleur said. "I had the bad dreams for weeks after the tournament. I know it happens."

Dean swallowed hard. "Really, Fleur, I know I'm safe here. It's just a little bit…"

"Claustrophobic," Luna supplied. She was standing behind Dean now, and she held some looseleaf parchment and ink in her hands. "I hope you don't mind, Mrs. Weasley. I didn't mean to rummage around in your things. I just thought Dean might like to draw. He drew our flag for Dumbledore's Army, you know. We hung it in the room where we practised."

"I am sure it was beautiful," Fleur nodded. "Do you like to draw, Dean?"

"I… I do," he said. "Luna, how'd you remember that?"

"It was very beautiful," Luna said. "Seeing it every week was a little bit like coming home."

Dean's heart glowed with a strange mixture of pride and thankfulness for Luna.

"What should I draw?" Dean asked.

"Whatever you want," Luna said. "That's how art works."

"You know so much about it," Dean said with a smile.

"I'm always learning," Luna said. "I'd love to watch you go."

And so it was decided that they'd sit at the kitchen table, and Fleur would pose for Dean and he'd draw her and they'd give the picture to Bill.

From that point on, Dean drew everything, all the time. Bill came back from a supply run a few days later with a pad of paper and a set of Muggle pens.

"I thought this might be what you're used to drawing with," Bill said. "My dad recommended them."

Dean wasn't sure just how to say thank you, so he drew Bill a scene from Egypt that made him smile. Dean was helping Fleur put away laundry one day and he saw that Bill had pinned it up on the wall of his bedroom.

So then he asked Fleur what M. Weasley liked, and she said that he liked Muggle contraptions so Dean drew him a robot and gave it to Bill to pass along to him. Really it was just R2D2, something he'd drawn for his little sister a thousand times, but apparently he loved it.

He drew M. Ollivander a picture of his shop in Diagon Alley, right down to the crooked 'R' at the end. M. Ollivander teared up a bit, and patted Dean's hand thankfully.

He drew Ron a massive Chudley Canon's logo. Quidditch players were flying behind the logo, and Ron was impressed that Dean had even gotten all their numbers and the makes of their brooms right.

For Hermione, he drew the Hogwarts' Library—books floating midair, lamps dimly glowing, shelves towering high… She looked longingly at the room and smiled brightly at Dean.

Harry's was a bit difficult, it was hard to tell what Harry would need at the moment. He decided to just draw the castle, and Harry seemed to like it and thanked him a lot and slipped it in that pouch he always kept around his neck.

He even drew a picture of tall, imposing Gringotts for Griphook. The goblin was hard to gage, but it would have been rude not to try.

Luna was easy; Dean drew the full menagerie of all the creatures she'd described to him while they were alone in that Malfoy Manor cell. There were a _lot _of them.

It was another rainy day and they were sitting next to the window that let out onto the porch, facing the beach. Dean wasn't completely at ease trapped in the cottage, but this was a good set-up; near a window, the glass cool against his skin, Luna sitting across from him, cutting _The Prophet _up into tiny pieces so that she could rearrange the letters in some game she'd made up for herself…

"Here," he said, turning his pad of paper to show her. "Is this what the Chucklesnout Greentoad would look like?"

"Oh, yes!" Luna brightened up. "You've really gotten the essence of them!"

Dean was long past questioning how cryptids could have essences; he just smiled at Luna's smile and tore the drawing out.

"Here, keep it."

"You're really quite generous with your art," Luna commented.

"I like making people happy," Dean said. "Besides, it's a good way to see what you can't otherwise touch or feel or hear or taste. Not that you should taste a Chucklesnout Greentoad, I suppose."

"Absolutely not," Luna agreed. "Very poisonous. They release toxins through their genitals as well as their ears."

"I didn't know toads had ears."

"They're quite small, that's a very understandable misconception," Luna said. She tilted her head to the side, sending her long blonde hair trailing. "What would you like to see, Dean?"

Dean pondered this.

"I think my…"

"Why don't you draw it?" Luna said, her interruption just as gentle as the rest of her.

So Dean drew. And, to be frank, he drew all day. He only stopped when Bill came to tap him on the shoulder for meals.

When it was nearing midnight, Luna came back to him, draped in a shawl. She sat down next to him and he showed her what he'd made.

He'd drawn his mum, his stepdad, and his four sisters. But as the cartoon caricatures he'd done for them a hundred times that they all loved; in the round, happy shapes that he illustrated all the shenanigans they wrote to him about with; the one he used to draw comics about how hectic life could be in their little house. He missed it.

He drew his mum in more detail. He felt like a child for saying it, but he missed her most. He would pay almost anything for a hug. He made her look as beautiful as possible in print.

And then he drew… well, Seamus.

"I miss him so much, Luna," he said, shaking his head. "Even more than my family I think, isn't that horrible? I feel bad, but I'm used to being away from them for months on end. Not him. And he loves the sea, I wish he was here although I'm glad he's safe..."

"He looks quite handsome," Luna noted.

"I think he is," Dean explained.

"Oh I'm sure. I meant no disrespect about your taste in men, this is just how mine works," Luna said. "Tell me about Seamus?"

"It's late," Dean smiled. "We could be here all day."

"I like hearing about love stories," Luna said. She wrapped part of her shawl around his shoulders. "And you draw him so nicely and with so much detail, there's got to be one."

Dean smiled more. "You're quite perceptive, Luna."

"Because you're my friend," she said.

"That's… so sweet," Dean said. "You're my friend too."

"That's good," Luna smiled, as if she was genuinely surprised. "Because we might be caught between the same walls for some time yet. Now; your story, Dean… We have time."

"Okay, good," Dean said. "Because I have stories."


End file.
